


The Victor

by wolfy_writing



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, Marvel 616, Namor the Sub-Mariner (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, Drugs, Gen, I blame Riona
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-13 21:28:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19259506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfy_writing/pseuds/wolfy_writing
Summary: "My mother is the secret princess of the ocean.  When I have proven myself as a warrior, she will come take me home, where everything is strong, beautiful, and free.  Until that day, I must fear nothing."





	The Victor

"He's too young," said Namor.  

Mags looked down at young Finnick, who was slowly lifting weights. "He's strong.He's clever.He's more likely to win than any of the others.” 

"He's fourteen!He's a _child_!”

“They’re _all_ children.He’s not much younger than you were when you won."

"There's a _world_ of difference between fourteen and sixteen!”

"Not from my age."Mags gave Namor the kind of soft look that made his skin itch."He has something.A spark, like what you had."

Namor folded his arms.”He's not as strong as I was."

Mags snorted.“No one is.He's calmer, though.More careful.He has a talent for survival."

That was true.Namor had mentored three rounds of Tributes, and seen three groups of children go to their deaths.He was sick of it, and could only imagine how much more sick of it Mags had become.

It would be worth a lot to have the boy come back alive.  

"But even if he wins..."Namor started, then trailed again before Mags gave him another look. Were they really going to throw a fourteen-year-old boy to the mercy of the Capitol? 

Finnick was a striking boy, lean and athletic with hair like bronze, and would draw considerable attention in certain circles.

There was a _world_ of difference between fourteen and sixteen.Namor wasn't sure if it would matter in the Capitol, though.

—

 _“What’s he doing still dressed?”, the stylist asked._  

_“He’s being stubborn,” replied one of the simpering assistants._

_The stylist frowned.“A **shy** boy? And the three of you can’t strip him?”_

_One of the assistants, nursing a sprained wrist, shook her head.“He’s strong.”_  

_“Hmm.”The stylist gave a thoughtful look.“Boy, strip.”_

_Namor glared and stood still, his arms folded._

_“Listen boy, I don’t know what that weird old woman you have for a Mentor told you, but if you want to stay alive, you need sponsors.And if you want sponsors, you can’t afford to be shy.You have two things going for you - you’re handsome, and you’re strong.We want to show both of them off to full effect.”_  

 _Angrily, Namor tore off his clothing.He_ ** _wasn’t_** _shy, and he normally preferred wearing as little as he could get away with.  But he resented having orders barked at him._  

**_My mother is the secret princess of the ocean.When I have proven myself as a warrior, she will come take me home, where everything is strong, beautiful, and free.Until that day, I must fear nothing._ **

_The styles stepped back and smiled. “No, I think I have plenty to work with here.”She tilted her head.“The ears are interesting.”She tapped at the top of his ears, where they came to a noticeable point.“Body modification?”_

_“Genetic anomaly,” said one of the assistants._

_Another whispered, “Mutt,” and giggled._

_“We can conceal them,” the first assistant volunteered.    "Or correct them, if you think we have the time."_

  _The stylist shook her head.“No.Highlight them.I want his hair kept back so we can clearly see the ears.We’re going to play up the exotic angle.Let them see that he’s no run-of-the-mill Career.This boy is something special.”_

  _She looked him up and down. “Good body, strong.District Four, so I’m guessing you swim?”_

_Namor gave a curt nod.He had, according to his father, started swimming before he could walk.And since he’d started training, he’d been assigned to do a brisk hour a day, in the pool or in the sea.As far back as he could remember, he’d been in the water every day of his life._

_“I’m thinking mesh, to evoke netting, but more elegant.I’m thinking some armor-like shoulder decorations, perhaps leather, to make him look like a warrior. Above all, I’m thinking we mustn’t obscure the view of this magnificent chest..” She nodded.“Bring me my sketch pad.By the time I’m done, they’ll be lining up to sponsor the boy, just so they can bed him if he wins.”_

_She caught Namor’s puzzled look.“Worry about that part later.That is, if you make it out alive.”_

—

As he watched the children line up for this year's reaping, Namor closed his eyes and took a steadying breath. 

_My mother is the secret princess of the ocean.When I have proven myself as a warrior, she will come take me home, where everything is strong, beautiful, and free.Until that day, I must fear nothing._

They looked so small, though, the children lining up.It had been scarcely four years since his victory, and the competitors looked tiny.Had he ever been that young? 

Even Finnick, who was to be this year's volunteer, looked far too _small_.

The first name was called, and some scruffy-looking fisherman’s boy went pale and glanced around. 

District Four normally fielded careers, but no one could _force_ them to volunteer, and, once in a very long while, no one volunteered to replace the child whose name was drawn.  (They could make the failed volunteer sorry _afterward_ , but by then it was too late.)

The boy marched up to the podium.He stood for the introduction, looking desperately at the crowd. 

And then, right as the boy looked like he was about to be sick, Finnick spoke up.

“I volunteer as Tribute!” he called out, in a loud, clear voice.  

The boy relaxed. 

Finnick marched up, and they proceeded to draw the girl’s name.Alannah, a girl of fifteen, volunteered in that child’s place. 

In a matter of minutes it was over, and their families were being marched out to bid them goodbye.

—

_As soon as Namor stepped into the room, his father gave him a careful hug._

_“I’m sorry, son,” he said, in a trembling voice._

_“For what?”_  

_Namor’s father, Lenar, stepped back, then glanced around.He gestured for Namor to join him on the soft leather seat._

_Lenar took a breath, then looked at Namor.“I think I knew this day would come.”_

_Namor frowned, confused.Of_ ** _course_** _he’d know.He’s signed Namor up to go to school, train to be a Career.While they always had more students than they needed, it had been made clear that anyone as strong as Namor would be competing in the Games._  

 _“I tried to take care of you,” Lenar said.“After your mother…well, I did my best.You were a tempestuous child.You destroyed things without meaning to.And you were so_ ** _hungry_** _.”He sighed.“The school, they said they could feed you, teach you to channel your strength, keep you out of trouble.Only one in four students ends up in the Games.I didn’t…at first, I told myself it might not be you.”_  

_“I’m strong,” said Namor.“Strong enough.”_

_Lenar nodded.“You’re very much like your mother.She…she would be proud.”He took a deep breath.“I know you’re strong enough for this.And you’re smart.Just remember to slow down and think.”_

_He looked Namor in the eye.“Do what you need to do in order to come through this.After…no matter what happens, after the Games, come back to me.”_

_Namor nodded.“I will win.”_

_“And then you’ll come back to me.”_  

_“Of course.”_

_It had seemed like a simple thing to promise at the time._

—

"Hello Finnick," said Mags, as they entered the train car."Hello, Alannah."She smiled at the children. 

Alannah had a deep tan and blonde hair bleached almost white from the sun.She had strong arms, and soft green eyes.

Officially, they were seen as having equal chances.  Unofficially, Alannah was not expected to survive.

"We're your mentors.We survived the Games, and we're here to give you every chance of survival that we can."

Finnick gave Namor a calculating look."You're Roman Makenzee, yes?You won the 61st Hunger Games.The one with all of the rain."

Alannah's eyes widened."You're the victor who killed everyone!"

"Not _everyone_ ," said Namor.

“He’s a legend!”, said Callan, the escort.“He came in strong at the Cornucopia, the dropped out of sight for half the Games, lying low and acting sick.And then the gamemakers unleashed that massive rainstorm.Everyone else was hungry, wet, and cold, and this madman ran around half-naked, living off raw fish, and tearing everyone to pieces!He finished with what, twelve kills?" 

“Eleven,” Namor corrected.

He'd killed eleven Tributes.Eleven _children_ , although they hadn’t seemed so young at the time.

_My mother is the secret princess of the ocean.When I have proven myself as a warrior, she will come take me home, where everything is strong, beautiful, and free.Until that day, I must fear nothing._

There was no _point_ dwelling on the past.It was far too late to change anything. 

“The point is, he brought honor to the District!And put on the best show in years!”He put a hand on Namor’s shoulder. "Learn from him!"

 Namor shook Callan off.“Don’t touch me."

“You killed eleven people?” Alannah asked, her voice trembling.

"I killed as many as I needed in order to save my own life," said Namor."And you will, too."

"What if we don't?" Alannah asked. 

"Then you die."

"I know it's hard," said Mags."But this is the choice you have.You can buy time by hiding, by evading, by seeking alliances, and by waiting for attrition through other competitors and bad luck, but in the end, you kill or you die."

_—_

_The boy had seemed like stiff competition at the time.  Some farm boy from District Eleven, seventeen and solidly built._  

 _He'd come for Namor with a knife, and Namor had twisted it out of his hand, breaking his wrist._  

_Then Namor had finished up by grabbing the boy's head and snapping his neck._

_At the time he hadn't felt bad about it.No shame, no hesitancy, no fear._

**_My mother is the secret princess of the ocean.When I have proven myself as a warrior, she will come take me home, where everything is strong, beautiful, and free.Until that day, I must fear nothing._ **

_The boy would have killed him just as readily.And Namor was not about to stand still and let himself be stabbed._

_But in his memory, the scene took on a different quality.The boy of seventeen seemed younger, more fragile._

_His eyes developed a frightened quality._  

 _The attack with the knife seemed clumsy, desperate.If it happened now, some street-thief attacking him like that, Namor would have driven them off, maybe frightened them a bit without bothering to cause them any real harm.He wouldn’t_ **_kill_ ** _a desperate, frightened child._

 _Not anymore._  

—

Namor awoke to a knocking on his bedroom door.

“It’s me, Mags.You were yelling in your sleep.”Mags opened the door and stepped inside.“I didn’t want you to start screaming and frightening the Tributes.”

Namor sat up and rubbed his face. “Thank you.”He had strong lungs and a voice that tended to carry, which was a useful trait for someone who worked on the water, and satisfying when he felt like being loud and intimidating.

He’d been told, however, that when he started shouting in his sleep, the screams were terrifying.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mags asked. 

Namor shook his head.

“We’ve all been there, in the arena.I know it can be terrifying.”

_My mother is the secret princess of the ocean.When I have proven myself as a warrior, she will come to take me home, under the waves, where everything is strong, beautiful, and free. Until that day, I must fear nothing._

“It’s not fear,” said Namor.

“Fear is only natural,” said Mags. 

“It _isn’t_ fear.”

It _wasn’t_ fear, that was the thing. 

It had been his trademark in the arena, the scream.A child, a Tribute, would be stumbling across the muddy ground, hungry and shivering in the relentless rain.

And then Namor, who never shivered, who, when soaked to the bone, only grew stronger, would let out a bloodcurdling cry.

Within minutes, the child would be dead. 

It wasn’t fear that made Namor scream in his sleep.It wasn’t nightmares.

It was bloodlust and joy. 

Mags hesitated.“Stebban, you call his name in your sleep.He was that ally of yours, yes?”

“I don’t want to ask about it.”

“I don’t think he would want you torturing yourself.”

“Stebban doesn’t _want_ anything,” said Namor.“He can’t.He’s dead.Go to sleep, Mags.”

He gave her a hard glare, and eventually she left.

—

_Stebban had been an unlikely alliance. He'd been seventeen, from District Twelve, skinny and asthmatic, and looking far more like an easy target than a natural ally._

_Namor had taken him for two reasons.First because there was no honor in killing Stebs, a boy so frail that his own body was likely to finish him off.Second, because his friend, Buck, who was only thirteen, but had a talent for illegal poaching and claimed he could bring down deer.(Namor had never seen him hunt anything bigger than a rabbit, but that slingshot of his kept them all fed, and taken down one contestant who'd been trying to finish off Namor with some kind of poisoned dart.)_

_It had been a wise alliance.The beginning of the Games was hot and dry, and most of the survivors had vanished into the forest.Stebs set up a camouflage system, and would sneak out and fetch water when dehydration left Namor almost too weak to walk._

_And then the rains came._

_Namor had been half-mad, and despite all of Stebs’s hard work, alarmingly dehydrated.He’d crawled out from the little shelter, and soaked in the rain, mouth open, water soaking through his skin._  

_Half an hour into the rainstorm, the pack of Careers attacked._

_They’d been looking for Namor, he knew, ever since he’d refused to join.They must have thought the rain would hide their approach._

_Buck fell first, taken down by a thrown knife._  

_A tall boy from District 1 came charging at them with an axe.He moved in, ready to take Stebban’s head off._

_And then Namor killed everyone._

_…not Stebban, at least officially.Officially it was the Career from District One who threw Stebban against the rock that killed him._

_However Namor had watched the footage a thousand times and if there was one thing he knew, it was that the judges couldn’t know.No one could.The rain came down so thick it turned the world gray.The fight was fast, a tangle of screams and twisted limbs._

_And in the end there were six dead Tributes and Namor on his feet, screaming with rage._

_Namor could mostly remember that fight, but the memory was slippery.He’d been half-mad from dehydration, furious after being left weak and dependent, and the water had filled him with an incredible rush of strength.And in the attack, Namor had been grabbing, throwing, and breaking everything in reach._

_Namor should know if he’d killed Stebs.Stebban was smaller than the careers, and would have felt much lighter to lift and throw.Namor would have felt the difference if he’d grabbed the boy and thrown him._

_He would_ **_remember_ ** _the difference, wouldn’t he?_

_Sometimes he thought he’d found the memory, the feel of Stebban’s lightweight body being flung through the air, the crunch of his head against a rock._

_Sometimes he thought it was his imagination, having gone over what happened so times he’d conjured the memory from nothing._

_Sometimes he thought it didn’t matter.Namor had allied with Stebban.Namor had, instead of protecting his ally, given into blood lust and violent rage.Stebban had been killed._  

_Even without knowing, that was guilt enough._

—

“I’ll do the talking,” said Mags, as they approached the sponsors.“Stand around and look handsome.Be polite.”

Namor gave his best smile. 

Mags shook her head. “Don’t.You’re not good at nice.Just don’t pick fights.Be remote, but don’t be rude.And stay away from Haymitch.”She slipped into the crowd, her speech taking on a folksy quality, making her sound like a simple fisherwoman, even though she’d fished for no reason other than sport since the day, as a teenager, when she’d become a victor. 

Namor glanced around the crowed.There he was, Haymitch Abernathy, the drunk from District 12.He’d won the Games and then devoted himself to gradually falling apart.He was a generous drinking companion at events like this, bringing you drink after drink as long as someone else was paying.Perhaps having someone drink with him kept him from realizing what he’d become.

Namor’s first year as a victor, Haymitch had inspired nothing but disgust.Namor had held the stinking, stumbling, weak little man in utter contempt. 

Namor had been confident the Tributes from District Four would win.He’d been wrong.

The second year, Namor accepted a drink from Haymitch after the District Four Tributes had died.Then another drink, and another, until he’d woken up the next morning feeling like he had alcohol seeping out of his skin.

The third year, they’d gotten into a drunken fist-fight at one of the endless receptions.Mags had given him a stern lecture.

Haymitch spotted Namor and held out a glass.

Namor shook his head.He would not let himself become like Haymitch, the stinking drunk.Or like the skinny morphling addicts from District Six, who chased oblivion so hard there was almost nothing left of them.

_My mother is the secret princess of the ocean.When I have proven myself as a warrior, she will come take me home, where everything is strong, beautiful, and free.Until that day, I must fear nothing._

He would not be weak enough to enslave himself to a chemical.

And he would not cause trouble while the boy Finnick had a hope of victory.

— 

_“What is this?” Namor asked, staring at pill.“Not morphling pills?”He’d received morphling for pain after an injury, and he hadn’t seen the appeal.It was effective if one was in great pain, but it left him dulled, slowed, and slightly sick._

_Tiberius, the Capitol socialite who’d managed to gain Namor’s attention for the evening, laughed.“It’s called illum.It’s an empathogen.It unlocks feelings, creates emotional bonds, and brings out the softer, gentler qualities.I’ve been dying of curiosity to see what it would do to you.”_

_“I never agreed to drugs,” said Namor.“I don’t like drugs.”_

_“Mmm,” said Tiberius.“You don’t like being vulnerable.”He put a hand on Namor’s arm.“Let me sweeten the deal.You take this, and unless you ask me to, I won’t lay a single hand on you the entire rest of the night. If you like it, then you come back and we have some fantastic times.If not, say the word and I will never call you again.”_

_Namor nodded.He took the pill from Tiberius’s hand.He placed it in his mouth and swallowed.He waited a few minutes, thoughtfully, waiting to see what happened._  

 _And then the bottom fell out of the world._  

_It was like he was swimming through murky water, strange currents at him tugging him with no sense of where he was being pulled._

_He blinked and he was like he was back in the arena again, ready for his final kill.Hiding in the water, steady and calm for longer than anyone would expect him to survive, waiting, waiting for that fool of a girl to bend over the lake so he could shoot out and snap her neck._

_(He’d twisted harder than he’d intended, and taken her head clean off.Except he hadn’t, he wasn’t that strong, it wasn’t **possible** to be that strong.The live feed had famously glitched, but the later video footage showed her collapsing with a broken neck.)_

_(Except he **had** torn her head off.He **had**.)_

_He blinked and found Tiberius holding him, whispering, “There you are, my sea prince.”_

_“My mother...” Namor gasped.“My mother is a secret princess of the ocean...”_  

_“I know she is.”Tiberius smiled.“It’s okay.I’m here."_

_For the first time since he was seven, Namor cried._

_The rest of the night was an incoherent spiral of memories, that finally, mercifully devolved into nothing but dark water and hissing rain lulling Namor to sleep._

_They didn’t fuck that night, Namor knew.He wouldn’t have felt half so violated if they had._  

_It was one thing to have people pawing over his body, but a special torment to feel someone like Tiberius pawing over his soul._

_The next morning, he glared at a smiling Tiberius and said, “Never again.”_

_It took a disgusting amount of drink, and a bloody fist-fight with Haymitch Abernathy, to make him feel anywhere close to clean._

—

Everyone gasped when the golden trident drifted into Finnick’s hand.

“By Neptune’s Beard!” Namor exclaimed.Mags had worked miracles finding a sponsor to pay for that. 

“He does look like a god of the sea,” said the woman who’d been chatting with Namor.She gave Finnick a hungry look that made Namor want to slap her.

Namor couldn’t remember her name.

She turned to Namor.“Neptune’s Beard, is that an expression in District Four?It sounds very old-fashioned."

“It’s something my mother used to say,” Namor replied.“I’ve never heard it from anyone else.”

"Your mother wasn’t from District Four?"

"My mother…I don’t remember much about her.I was too young.She went missing when I was a child,” said Namor."It's believed she was killed by criminals."Criminals was a nice, neutral guess.Certain kinds of people could be killed by rebels, certain others by security forces.Either one of those answers said something about your family.Even deaths by animal attack were suspect, with the muttations being set against rebels.But being killed by criminals could happen to anyone.

It was a good answer when you didn't know who you could trust.

“Oh, you poor man.Do you know her name?”

Namor nodded.“Fen.Fiona,” he lied.“Fen for short.”

The woman gazed sympathetically, and slid her hand onto Namor’s thigh.

— 

_Namor had been seven the last time he saw his mother._

_She'd slip into his room at night, when it was dark and the other children, the normal children, were asleep.There would be a whisper of, "Namor," his secret name, and he'd open his eyes to see her face, pale blue in the dim evening light._

  _She would take him into her arms and sing songs in a strange language.She would tell him stories of her kingdom under the sea, and the mighty King Thakorr, his grandfather, who was waiting for him.She would promise him that one day, when he was big enough and strong enough to swim to the deepest part of the ocean, she would take him with her and he would stay forever._

_And she would tell him, “I am the secret princess of the ocean.When you have proven yourself as a warrior, I will come take you home, where everything is strong, beautiful, and free.Until that day, you must fear nothing.”_

_One day, when he was seven, she gave him a kiss and promised they would see each other again._

_He was still waiting for her to keep that promise._  

_He'd asked his father several times.They'd fought about it.Namor had shouted and screamed._

_But Lenar Makenzee would only say three things about Namor's mother.Her name was Fen.She'd had to make some hard choices.And she loved her son very much._

_Other people had speculated."Rebel" had been the least cruel word they'd used.Namor had spent a lot of his childhood beating other boys bloody for some of the gossip they'd repeated about his mother._

_In the end it had come down to a simple choice._

_He could be Roman Makenzee, and hope for nothing more than what life in Panem offered.He could treat his mother's stories as just stories made to soothe a temperamental child and gloss over a story too complex and ugly to tell._

_Or he could be Namor, Avenging Son of Atlantis, the secret son of the princess of the sea, waiting until he was strong enough to claim his kingdom._

—

When the Mentors were invited Finnick after his victory, he was already on his feet.

He gave Mags an intense hug. 

She wrapped her arms around him.“I’m so glad you’re alive.” 

Then, when the hug broke, Finnick looked at Namor.

It was not an affectionate look.

“I won,” said Finnick.

Namor nodded.  

"I couldn't have done it without you," Finnick said.In a different tone, it would have been gratitude. 

 From the look on his face, young Finnick had some idea of how little he had to be grateful _for_.

"You will do the same for future Tributes," said Namor.

"Alannah's dead," said Finnick."I didn't kill her."

"You're lucky you didn’t need to.” 

"I don't know if I would have or not." 

"You would have," said Namor."Don't lie to yourself.We both know what you are."

"What's that?" Finnick asked.He sounded hurt and angry.Resentful of what he'd become.A hot-headed child with no idea how to live with the blood on his hands.

Mags had her eyes fixed on Finnick, but Namor felt the same itchy discomfort as he did whenever she gave one of her concerned looks. 

"A Victor," said Namor."Soon to be a Mentor.A killer.Just like me.”

“Are you _proud_?” Finnick asked. “Are you _happy_ with what you got from me?" 

“Ask when you’ve shepherded the next round of Tributes through the arena,” Namor said.“Tell me how happy you think I am then.”

Namor turned and walked away.

Mags followed.“Roman, after all the boy’s been through...”

“I know what he’d been through,” said Namor.

“Then why couldn’t you be kinder?”

“You _know_ why,” said Namor.“You know _exactly_ what I am.”He paused, then spoke again.“Take care of him, Mags.Keep him human.”

"Roman..."

"That's not who I am."

After a moment, Mags turned back and went to comfort Finnick, leaving Namor alone.

— 

_“Beautiful sunset,” Namor’s father said, as they sat on the edge of the cliff._

_Namor didn’t respond.He’d been listening to the sound of the sea.It gave him a homesick feeling._

_It was strange, because he **was** home.He’d made it back from the Games.He won._ 

_And he felt more lost than ever._

_“I wanted to talk to you.”_

_“So talk.” Namor didn’t take his eyes off the sunset._

_“You promised you would come back to me.”_

  _“And I did.”_

 _“ **Did** you?”_ 

_A seagull soared over the ocean._

_“I don’t know what you want from me,” said Namor.“I did what you asked.I did what everyone asked.And now…” He’d fought_ **_too well._ ** _People were afraid of him.They said he was like a madman, or a hungry shark._

_They said he wasn't human._

_“You did.And now that’s over.”_

_“Are you proud of me?Proud of everything I’ve done?”_

_“I love you.And it means more than I can say that you made it home.”_

  _There was another silence, interrupted only by the seagull’s call._

  _“I’m going to the Capitol tomorrow,” Namor said._  

_Lenar put a hand on Namor’s arm. “Don’t.You’re not happy there.It’s not good for you.”_

_“You want me to stay?”Did the old man know what that would mean?_  

 _Namor_ **_could_ ** _stay.He had a choice.He told himself that every time he answered an invitation from the Capitol.Some days that was all that kept him from smashing in more skulls._

  _He_ ** _had_** _a choice.He could go to the Capitol, and look handsome and brooding, and be just agreeable enough that they could get what they wanted from him.And between that and Mags using her folksy charm, some boy or girl from District Four would get some big ticket sponsors and maybe come back alive._

 _Or he could refuse.And Lenar Makenzee, an old sea captain with an injured leg, would die.Possibly Mags, although she was a useful Mentor, and good at survival skills. That would be the end of the sponsorships, possibly for years._  

_He did have a choice._

_“Please stay.I know - “_  

_“What do you know?” Namor snapped.“Tell me, old man, what do you know about me?”_

_“I know that you hurt.I know that you went through a terrifying experience.I know that desperation breeds hard choices.I know that you were just a child.”_

_The old man was a fool.The_ **_other_ ** _Tributes were just children.They had been like drowning victims, struggling, flailing, leaving blood in the water to draw hungry sharks._

_Namor had been the shark._

_“Roman - “_

_“You know_ **_nothing!_ ** _” Namor spat.“I’m going.Stay here, in the large house, with plentiful food, and a warm place to sit on a cold winter’s night.Stay in the house bought with my courage and my strength.Be grateful.”_

 _He walked off quickly, trying to escape the sound of his father’s tears._  

— 

Namor crouched down by the edge of the cliff.Slowly, he emptied his pockets.He removed his money, his identity documents, the keys to his home, everything belonging to the life of Roman Makenzee.

 Then he took off his shoes.When he freed his feet from his socks, he wiggled his ankles.He’d always hated wearing socks.  

He stripped down to a shimmery green swim costume, designed by his stylist back before the Games.The intent had been to show off his body to the crowd.Namor kept them because they left so little between him and the water as he swam. 

He dove off the cliff precisely, perfectly, and into the water below.

_My mother is the secret princess of the ocean.When I have proven myself as a warrior, she will come take me home, where everything is strong, beautiful, and free.Until that day, I must fear nothing._

He had proven himself as a warrior.He had become strong, so strong that he didn’t know _how_ to break.He had done all he could to conquer his fears.If he wasn’t good enough, he was never going to be. 

His life in Panem wasn’t going to make him stronger.Not more children, sent into the arena with all of the training he could give, and sent back out as broken bodies, small, fragile, and still.Not more Victors looking at him the way Finnick did, with hurt, angry eyes.Not more drunken brawls with Haymitch, not more endless hours whiled away performing leisure for the Capitol, not more night bed-hopping on command and attempting to convince himself he didn’t _want_ to smash their filthy skulls. 

It was now or never.

He swam out further, until he’d almost lost sight of the land.

If he was correct, he should be able to find Atlantis, the secret kingdom in the sea.A city of twisty shell-like spires, where all of the people were strong, beautiful, and free .

And no one forced teenagers to go forth and kill. 

They would welcome him as their lost prince.He might even raise an army against the Capitol, and go forth to conquer them.Or he might forget the surface world altogether, and spend the rest of his life beneath the waves.

He would not be trapped by the Capitol, by the Games, by the life he’d made.

If he was wrong, then he would die.If he was Roman Makenzee, son of Lenar Makenzee and an ordinary woman who’d died an anonymous death, he would drown here, out in the ocean, as he ran out of air and the cold water closed over him.

He would still not be trapped by the Capitol, by the Games, by the life he’d made. 

He looked around.He was farther from the shore than he’d ever been.

“I’m coming, mother.  Be ready.”He took one last breath of air.

And then he dove.

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided to interpret Mags as pre-stroke, and assume she was a skilled Mentor, considering Finnick's victory. 
> 
> I took a lot of liberties with Namor's backstory and circumstances to fit him plausibly into the Hunger Games.
> 
> Character's perspective is not the author's perspective.


End file.
